


The first roll of dice

by Tabata



Series: Leoverse [12]
Category: Glee
Genre: M/M, Role-Playing Game
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-09
Updated: 2020-05-09
Packaged: 2021-03-03 04:01:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,911
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24088561
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tabata/pseuds/Tabata
Summary: Among Leo's many hobbies there is one that dates back to when he was a kid, role playing. He taught Adam and Annie how to play and they had many adventures together, but now it is time to introduce his boyfriend – the cute little one, not the other – to this wonderful world. Meet Jake of Winterport, Alioth and Celeste.
Relationships: Original Male Character/Original Male Character
Series: Leoverse [12]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/30541
Comments: 1
Kudos: 1





	The first roll of dice

**Author's Note:**

> **WARNING:** This story is a **spin-off** for Broken Heart Syndrome. This means that it depicts things happening way late in the 'verse, and that may be on varying degrees of spoiler.
> 
> written for: LDF's Esploratori del Polyverso (Chapter 0.2)  
> prompts: Ghost | Chimera

“I didn't agree to this.”

Adam's every single role playing session begins with these five words since 2031, the year when Leo forced him to play for the first time during a devastatingly boring and also very rainy afternoon of November, two days before Thanksgiving and twelve hours before the hurricane.

The weather was not supposed to get bad until the next weekend, but weather did what it wanted to do and got bad very fast and way sooner than expected, so the authorities told people to stay inside wherever they were. Adam got stuck at Leo's house and his mother at the Mercy Health, the hospital where she worked. After a quick phone call Kurt assured Angela that her boy was more than welcomed to stay for as long as it was needed and more – Adam had already been spending most of his time at their house anyway – and she shouldn't be worried about him.

Under normal circumstances, Leo and Adam would have played video games – their favorite past time and, also, the only one they could agree upon, since Leo shied away from sports as if they could give him the plague and Adam could not watch two episodes of the same TV shows in a row without ending up with too much pent-up energy and no way to get rid of it – but the lights were coming and going because of the strong wind and it was unwise to start a level five match of BioAftermath in such uncertain conditions. That gave Leo the perfect opportunity to introduce his best friend to one of his favorite things to do in the whole world: role playing.

That was the day Jake of the Lake was born.

Four years later, Sir Jake Cobfield, Lord of Winterport – he gained a family name, a title and a castle during the course of several campaigns – is now a level 46 paladin because he refuses to die and Adam is too squared to change his character every now and then just to play someone different. 

Jake led every single party he's been part of to victory and single-handedly took down three of Leo's most beloved villains. He also started and led a rebellion in a remote village of gnomes once, just because he thought they were being unfairly exploited by a local gang of goblin bullies. The gnomes were not even in the plot, their village was one of the many the adventurers were going to just pass by, but Adam got so angry that Leo was forced to reroute the whole narrative to include the stupid village.

“I suppose this campaign will also be blessed by Sir Jake Cobfield,” Leo says sarcastically as he prepares the table, the dice and his own master's screen, which was designed, drawn and painted by Adam himself and depicts the main characters of one of Leo's most successful campaigns. That thing is ancient but Leo refuses to throw it away.

“Obviously,” Adam sits down at the head of the coffee table and puts his own set of dice on it. They could use the table in the kitchen, but Leo has the tendency to scatter all his papers and manuals around, so the floor is a much more practical surface for him to use.

“Obviously,” Leo sighs in resignation, retrieving the actual _dossier_ on Cobfield he put together over the years. There's everything in there, from the first notions of his background to the weapons he's been using so far, who he met, fucked (very few people, Jake of Winterport has a lot of charisma but he's not a ladies' man), killed, and obviously all his stats.

“Who is Sir Jake Cobfield?” Cody asks, taking the snacks he was asked to bring out of the grocery bag. He was supposed to buy chips and other savory things, but he couldn't help himself. So there's an entire selection of small cakes piling up at the center of the coffee table now.

“Our fearless hero and Leo's worst nightmare,” Annie answers, taking her place at the other head of the table.

“I've been trying to kill him off for years, but there's no way of doing that. He's too lucky—“

“It is not luck!” Adam says, outraged. “Can't you just admit I'm very good at this game?”

“He's too lucky,” Leo ignores him, making Cody laugh. “And the more he goes on, the stronger he becomes. I should make enemies that are impossible to defeat for everyone else in the party except him just to match his abilities, and that wouldn't be fun, so I'm forced to find all kind of alternative ways to hinder him so everybody else can play.”

“I help you be creative, you should thank me, Karofsky.”

“There was this time when a witch cursed him right at the beginning of the campaign,” Annie chuckles. “She was pissed at him for something, I don't remember what, and she cast a spell on him that prevented him from using all his strongest attacks. Another time, to get back at him, a goblin sent him a cursed bracelet to his house and he was stupid enough to wear it. The thing had belonged to some ancient entity or other and basically disabled his right hand, which was his dominant hand. So he had to re-learn each one of his abilities with his left hand and level it up like the rest of us. And then of course there was the ghost.”

“Oh boy, I had forgotten that,” Leo chuckles while Adam groans and decides to drown his sorrows in a can of coke. “Definitely one of my greatest ideas.”

“Now I'm curious,” Cody looks from Annie to Adam to Leo, on whom his eyes always rest eventually. “What happened with the ghost?”

“A little introduction. We have just finished an adventure and we're about to start another one with the same characters that's set right after that one. I almost never do that because I like to change both setting _and_ characters, thus my hatred for Walker here, but this time I have something special in mind, so I actually need all the heroes to return. So, the year prior in the story, they had one last face-off with this mega-villain inside a ruined castle on a mountain peak. It was a real bloodbath, and in the midst of the heated fight, the completely innocent wife of this evil man was stroke down by an unsuspecting Jake Cobfield.”

“That was such a low blow, man,” Adam moans, the memory still haunting him to this day. “I didn't know he had glamoured her to look like one of the ghouls he was sending after us.”

“That was the whole point of Morrow disguising her like that. They were winning and he knew Jake would break down if he killed an innocent person by mistake, him being a paladin an all. In fact, Jake freaked out, and if they survived that whole ordeal it was only because Annie pushed them all through.”

“That I did,” Annie says with pride.

“But anyway, this is not the point. So, they kill the evil villain, Morrow, and his innocent wife Genevieve. They are happy but grieving the poor woman, especially Jake, who even thinks to give up his sword for a moment. Except that he doesn't. Fast forward one year later and Jake finds himself with a big problem. Genevieve didn't pass through to the afterlife. She stayed behind because she wants revenge. After she died and a few seconds before disappearing completely, she found her way into Jake's sword and now she's living in there, coming out every now and then only to remind him what he did and make him feel guilty.”

Leo grabs a few potato chips and stuffs his face. At this point him and Cody have been together for two months, they already had sex (finally!) and Cody already knows he's handsome and charming, so he can drop the act. “Imagine this translucent woman – she's a proper old school Victorian ghost – that scolds Jake with her hands on her hips, making his life miserable. And not only that. Since she lives inside the sword, she refuses to let him use it. Every time he tries to wield his weapon, it either misses the target or hurts him. I think you've already got where this is going.”

“Without his sword he's either forced to use another one, probably less powerful,” Cody reasons. He knows nothing about role playing but he read a lot of fantasy books. “Or, he has to pick another weapon entirely and learn to use it from scratch. You're evil.”

“Oh, you have no idea, Sweets,” Leo smirks in his direction, but then he can't resist and kisses him. Cody tastes like chocolate in normal circumstances, even more so after eating two chocolate bars.

“Did you manage to get rid of her in the end?” Cody asks, curious. Adam next to him whimpers again.

“At some point I gave him the chance to exorcise her,” Leo explains as he grabs some new piece of paper to start the game. He's all about technology, but there's something special in writing character's sheets by hand. “But he grew attached to her and he refused to eliminate her.”

“Aw, you truly are a paladin,” Cody comments around a candy he just popped in his mouth.

“It wasn't her fault she died!” Adam protests. “I couldn't destroy her just because I needed to use the sword! It wouldn't have been fair. And also, it was clearly against my personal code.”

“Is she still in there?”

“I think so,” Adam nods. “I brought her back to what was left of the castle, if I remember correctly, and then I left the sword there, so at least she could haunt her own house or something like that.”

“She is still there,” Leo confirms, “and we'll leave her there this time around. I have something completely different for you all in mind. So, our story today begins in the castle of Winterport, residence of Sir Jake Cobfield, who at this point is—wow, after four years I was kinda hoping he was decrepit, but he's actually only twenty-five,” Leo frowns at Jake's character sheet in his hands. “Alright, whatever, it doesn't matter how old you are because a few weeks ago you woke up sick and you're sick still.”

“Seriously?” Adam frowns at him. “Sickness, Leo?”

“An unknown ailment, to be precise,” Leo goes on undisturbed in his trademark narrator's voice, “that's how Old Eleus, your personal physician and friend, called it. Whatever it is, it makes you weak and always tired. You can still wield your sword, but you're not as strong as you were before, and as far as you understand it, this illness is draining you day after day, so much so that you need healing spells to constantly be cast on you. You're basically dying and nothing seems to work.”

“Great, just great,” Adam snorts. “Thanks a lot, Leo.”

“You're welcome,” Leo grins at him and then he reads his notes before continuing. “You are not someone who gives up easily, though, we all know that. And the past four years are nothing but a testament to your stubborn attachment to life. So, following Eleus' advice, you decide to embark on a journey to find a cure for your illness. Obviously, you can't go alone because you're dying—“

“Can you stop saying that?”

“–so you look for someone who can accompany you and you find two people. One of them is Alioth, Annie's character. She's a chimera.”

“A what now?”

“A chimera, she's part human, part feline and part reptile,” Leo explains. “She hears you talking about your upcoming trip at the local inn and decides to join you as she too is in search of answers.”

It's always nice to play with Annie because she comes up with the best characters, who are always on the evil spectrum. Most of the times she plays lawful evil people – One of her most famous creations was a dark paladin devoted to an obscure deity who almost managed to start the apocalypse – but Alioth is neutral evil, which could potentially be even more interesting with Adam in the group.

“But is it another species or...?” Adam interrupts him again, confused. “Why is she like that?”

Annie chuckles, helping herself to some chips. “That's one of the answers I'm seeking.”

“She was made like this, because chimeras are not born, but she has no memory of who she was before and who made her that way. She will discover all of that and more if she's lucky and she follows the right path,” Leo goes on. “The only clue she has for now is in her blood as she seems to posses magic. She's an untrained sorcerer, but she's powerful and she can be useful to you, considering your condition.”

“Please, stop saying that.”

“Never!” Leo declares, vehemently, making Cody laugh. “Anyway, she can protect you but she can't cure you because she knows no real healing magic. That is why you will need Cody.”

Cody stands at attention. He had almost forgotten that he's here to play too, not just to listen to Leo telling beautiful stories, which he would, by the way, for the rest of his life. “I'm not really sure what I'm supposed to do,” he murmurs, instantly reverting to his extremely shy self as he always does whenever he feels like the chances of him saying something wrong are really high.

He doesn't like to be put on the spot, especially if he has to choose something. He's quick to panic and Leo knows that, that is why he thought about everything. “Don't worry, I've already created a character for you. We can tweak it here and there if you don't like him.”

“I'm sure I will,” Cody smiles at him, a lot calmer already. It always takes Leo a few seconds to make his anxiety go away. It also takes him very little to make it come back – especially when they're messing around in bed – but that's another story.

“Oh, you two are so cute!” Annie squeals.

“Yeah, they're sugary,” Adam snorts, “but don't rile Leo up, or they're going to make a baby on this table before we can even begin to play.”

“That would be a miracle of nature _and_ probably science that you would be lucky to witness,” Leo says. “Anyway, Cody, your character's name is Celeste. He's a cleric, member of a religious order, the Lightbringers, devoted to healing people.”

“How convenient,” Cody chuckles.

“I know, right?” Leo chuckles too. “You just concluded your special training and you're supposed to go half across the country to Abrela, where the religious order of the Lightbringers started, to become the keeper of the _Origo Lucis_ , the Source of All Light. Nobody knows exactly what it is, not even you, but it's basically the symbol of the order itself, so being its custodian is the highest honor a cleric can receive.”

“I surely am grateful” Cody nods. “But I also feel like it's going to be a problem.”

Leo nods gravely as if this was really a serious conversation. “I'm afraid so. There's going to be sweat, blood and tears, not necessarily in that order,” he confirms. “Now, normally you would do such a journey together with your mentor and a security detail of at least ten men, but there's a war going on at the moment between humans and a particularly vicious fringe of dark elves in the northern regions, and most of the other clerics have been deployed to the front to heal the soldiers. So, when Jake went to the High Priest asking to hire a healer, the pious man thought of killing two birds with one stone. He told Jake you could go with him as long as he swore a sacred oath that he would protect you, personally or otherwise, and also escort you to your destination once his journey is over.”

“I hope I accepted,” Adam frowns.

“Of course you did. You're a sucker for a good oath,” Leo dismisses him. “You told the man you will do everything in your power to keep Celeste safe and the same will do your companion, even though you didn't exactly asked Alioth that, which could be a problem. But that's _your_ problem, not mine. Then, once you will have recovered your health, you will make the journey to Abrela with him so that he could fulfill his destiny. Is everything clear?”

“I don't know where the trick is, but so far so good,” Adam nods.

“Crystal clear.” Annie grins specifically at Cody. “I'm excited to take this lovely cleric to his first adventure.”

Cody blushes and looks away from her, except that looking at Leo isn't any better as his boyfriend has a very specific effect on him. “I think I got it,” he nods, pensively. “What do I have to do now?”

“Don't worry about that, I'll walk you through it.” Leo leaves a kiss on his nose and then he claps his hands once. “Alright, are we ready?”

They all scream, “Yes!” raising their fists.

Cody listens to Leo in awe as he starts to unfold the story for them and he feels real happiness – unusual, heart-exploding, exhilarating happiness – as he waits for his first roll of dice.


End file.
